All posts tagged ‘android’

File Under: Browsers, Mobile
Oct
17
2011

Firefox for Android Plans to Go Native

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Firefox on Android.

Mozilla is planning a makeover for Firefox on Android. The company has announced it plans to abandon the usual Firefox look on Android mobile devices and will instead use Android’s native user interface widgets.

Switching to native widgets on Android will mean a faster, more responsive mobile browser, but it might also make for a Firefox no one recognizes.

Under the hood Firefox for Android will still use the Gecko rendering engine, but without the XUL interface that powers Firefox on every other platform, Firefox for Android might be missing its familiar look.

XUL, which comes from the mouth-twisting phrase eXtensible User interface Language, was originally developed so that Firefox could have a similar interface across platforms. That is, with a few tweaks to Gecko, Firefox can easily move from Windows to Mac to Linux and back while maintaining a reasonably consistent appearance. Behind the scenes XUL means that Firefox has to do some extra work to draw itself on the screen, but on the desktop it’s hardly noticeable.

However, on mobile platforms, where memory and processors are still very limited, XUL is slowing Firefox down.

Writing on the Mozilla Mobile Platforms mailing list, Johnathan Nightingale, Director of Firefox Engineering, says that the move to a native Android interface will mean faster startup times, significantly less memory usage and a much snappier user interface — particularly when performing common mobile tasks like zooming and panning.

Of course everything in software is a trade off and the significant downside to using native elements for Firefox on Android is the possible loss of XUL-dependant add-ons. Nightingale says that the mobile team is working with the add-on team to find a solution, but so far nothing has been decided for sure. One possible solution would be to use native widgets for the main Firefox interface elements, but keep XUL around under the hood so that add-ons could still function.

Another concern is that, without its familiar user interface, Firefox won’t really be any different than other Android browsers. Firefox developer Robert Kaiser writes that he believes a “Firefox with native Android UI won’t be very much better than the native Android browser.”

Asa Dotzler, community coordinator for Firefox, is more confident, claiming that Mozilla is “not bound by any technology,” and that, if it needs to, Mozilla can “make add-ons work with a native [Android] UI.”

Nightingale says that a decision regarding add-ons will be made in the next few weeks, but that “Firefox 8 and 9 will ship with the XUL UI,” including the new user interface for tablets, while work continues on the native Android version. In other words, the native version isn’t likely to arrive until Firefox 10 rolls around in 2012.

If you don’t want to wait that long there is already a branch of Firefox on Android using the native widgets. There’s no binary yet, but if you want to try it out you can grab the source and compile it yourself.

Photo: Johan Larsson/Flickr

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File Under: Browsers, Mobile, Web Apps
Aug
24
2011

Mozilla’s WebAPI Wants to Replace Native Apps With HTML5

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Mozilla has launched an ambitious new project aimed at breaking down the proprietary app systems on today’s mobile devices. The project, dubbed WebAPI, is Mozilla’s effort to provide a consistent, cross-platform, web-based API for mobile app developers.

Using WebAPI, developers would write HTML5 applications rather than native apps for iOS, Android and other mobile platforms.

Mozilla isn’t just talking about WebAPI, it’s already hard at work. It plans to develop the APIs necessary to provide “a basic HTML5 phone experience” within six months. After that the APIs will be submitted to the W3C for standardization.

Among the APIs Mozilla wants to develop are a telephone and messaging API for calls and SMS, a contacts API, a camera API and half a dozen more.

If those APIs sound vaguely familiar it might be because the W3C’s Device APIs Working Group is covering similar ground.

So, why the new effort from Mozilla? Well, Mozilla’s WebAPI is a part of its larger Boot to Gecko Project, which aims to eventually develop an operating system that emphasizes standards-based web technologies. With that end goal in mind, WebAPI may end up somewhat different than what the W3C is trying to build.

It’s also possible that Mozilla simply doesn’t want to wait for the Device APIs Working Group. Mozilla wants WebAPI up and running in a mere six months, the W3C’s Device APIs Work Group is unlikely to move that fast. But “the idea is to collaborate with W3C and all players and together form a good solution, and not just dump it on them,” says Mozilla Technical Evangelist Robert Nyman in a comment on his post announcing WebAPI.

The dream of write-once, run-anywhere software is nothing new and, if history is any guide, Mozilla’s WebAPI efforts may well be doomed. The open source giant does have one thing going for it that most other efforts have not — the open web. Most write-once, run-anywhere attempts have come from companies like Adobe and were built around proprietary frameworks. WebAPI doesn’t suffer from vender lock-in the way some projects have. WebAPI’s main roadblock is convincing other mobile web browsers to support the APIs.

For WebAPI to appeal to developers, Mozilla will need Apple, Google and other mobile browser makers to implement the APIs so that WebAPI can compete with native applications. Before you dismiss that as an impossibility, bear in mind that Apple’s original vision for iOS app development was based around HTML applications, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a company more eager to embrace web apps than Google. Whether either company will devote any resources to implementing WebAPI remains to be seen. But if Mozilla can get WebAPI standardized by the W3C other browser makers would likely support it.

Mozilla’s plans for WebAPI are certainly ambitious, but the company is putting its money where its mouth is — Mozilla is currently hiring several full time engineers to work on WebAPI.

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File Under: Browsers
Oct
14
2010

Opera’s Next Act: Add-ons, Hardware Acceleration, Android

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Opera Software has announced that the next version of its desktop web browser, Opera 11, will include support for hardware acceleration and browser extensions. The company also has plans to port its popular Opera Mobile browser to Android phones.

It’s the next version of Opera for the desktop that will see the most enhancements. The first Opera 11 alpha will be available soon, but the company already showcased the new extensions framework in a demo at its Up North Web event in Oslo, Norway. Opera’s new extensions framework is much like those pioneered by Chrome and Firefox, and later by Safari — using HTML, CSS and JavaScript to create lightweight add-ons.

When Safari jumped on the bandwagon and offered extensions earlier this year, Opera was the last browser that did not have a system in place for third-party add-ons. While Opera has long been a major source of browser innovation — it was the first browser to offer tabbed browsing, visual tab navigation, mouse gestures, SVG graphics and page zooming, all since copied by other browsers — add-ons were one place Opera trailed the browser pack. But not any more.

Opera’s extensions will be based on the W3C Widget specification (which defines a “widget” as a downloadable and locally stored web application) and, according to the company, it should be relatively easy to port existing Chrome and Safari extensions to Opera’s platform.

Also coming in Opera 11 is hardware acceleration. Hardware acceleration allows the browser to offload intensive tasks like image scaling, rendering complex text or displaying scripted animations to your PC’s graphics card. It has the benefit of freeing up the PC’s main processor and speeding up page load times.

Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome will all add varying degrees of hardware acceleration to their next versions, and with Opera joining in, that means only Apple’s Safari will be missing GPU capabilities.

Opera’s hardware acceleration won’t be limited to the desktop version of Opera either. The company has announced plans to build Opera Mobile for Android. The mobile version of Opera is a full-fledged web browser (unlike Opera Mini, which is available for the iPhone and countless other mobile devices) and will feature hardware acceleration and pinch-to-zoom support for Android.

Opera hasn’t set a date for the release of either Opera 11 or Opera Mobile for Android, though the company did say the latter will available within a month.

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File Under: Browsers, Mobile
Sep
24
2010

Firefox for Android Is Growing Up Fast

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Fennec Firefox MobileThe newest nightly builds of Firefox Mobile for Android phones are fast, stable, and — unlike the previously released alpha we told you about last month — actually usable.

Development on Firefox for Android is progressing rapidly, and there are a lot of small tweaks and changes to be found in the new nightly builds. But the big news is that everything actually works now. The browser’s performance is much improved, especially in responsiveness, scrolling and zooming.

You can download it here. But be sure to read the release notes, which cover the system requirements (Android 2.0 and up) and the known issues.

This little browser called Fennec (as the mobile version of Firefox is still known at this point in its life) first arrived on Android phones earlier this year. I took it for a spin when the alpha was released in August, and while I noted it had already come a long way in a short time, I was both perplexed and disappointed after a spending a couple of days with it.

I was left wanting because, having seen just about every iteration of Firefox over the years, and having had a wonderful experience testing the Maemo Linux release of Fennec on a Nokia smartphone, I was used to Mozilla shipping alpha versions that were fast, innovative and left you really pumped about the final product.

Not so with this little guy. The first alpha version of Firefox for Android was slow. Really slow. And buggy. Zooming and scrolling were choppy. The Wired home page would mysteriously reload every 20 seconds, and some sites wouldn’t load at all. I double-checked my Nexus One’s system settings, thinking something must be wrong. Since it was alpha code, I planned to revisit it later and measure the changes.

Then I saw this tweet by Mozilla’s Mike Beltzner Friday morning, and I decided it was time.

This most recent nightly build of Firefox for Android fixes most of the performance issues. Wired.com still doesn’t fare too well (probably our fault), but surfing the rest of the web is much more pleasant in the new Fennec. Scrolling and the pinch-zoom gesture are about as fast as Android’s stock WebKit browser. Page rendering is a touch slower in Fennec than in the Android browser, but we can expect that to improve.
Continue Reading “Firefox for Android Is Growing Up Fast” »

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File Under: HTML5, Mobile
Sep
20
2010

Video: Watch Flash Hand HTML5 a Beating on Mobiles

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We’re not trying to throw gasoline on the fire or anything, but here’s an interesting video of Flash and HTML5 duking it out on two different mobile devices.

Developer Chris Black shows us two versions of the same animation, one done in Canvas and JavaScript and one done in Flash. He first runs it on a brand new iPod Touch (HTML5) and then on an Android Nexus One (HTML5 and Flash). The framerate is much higher and steady on the Flash version — 57 frames per second versus 40fps in Canvas on the Nexus One and 22fps on the iPod.

A few huge caveats here: The animation is very simple, and is hardly on par with most web animations. Also, the JavaScript code is not optimized as much as it could be, which may be hurting the framerate numbers in the HTML5 portion of the test. Lastly, it’s only an experiment. The HTML5 test measures the rendering speed of the mobile browsers being used, so it can’t be taken as a true head-to-head Flash/HTML5 benchmark. Read the comments on Black’s post and you’ll see people reporting different results across different Android devices. To that point, he uses an iPod Touch, roughly the same as an iPhone and not as fast as an iPad (none of which can play Flash content).

So what’s the purpose, then? Black says he’s trying to take the temperature of the different choices to decide where it makes the most sense for him to focus his efforts as a developer. Here’s his rationale, in the comments of his post:

Continue Reading “Video: Watch Flash Hand HTML5 a Beating on Mobiles” »

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File Under: Browsers, Mobile
Aug
27
2010

Firefox Mobile Alpha Lands on Android

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The first official pre-release version of Mozilla’s mobile Firefox browser for Android devices has arrived, the company announced Friday.

Curious users with phones running Android 2.0 and above, or with Nokia N900 devices, can download and install it right now.

Codenamed Fennec, Firefox mobile is based on the same code as the big daddy desktop version of Firefox. It supports the same web standards and it even accepts add-ons. It also syncs up with your other versions of Firefox, so your history, Awesomebar searches, auto-fill form data and passwords will be the same as you move from desktop to mobile and back again throughout your day.

One of the strokes of genius design in the Fennec browser is the unique side-to-side swipe action, which brings up menus for things like tabs, bookmarks and settings. It minimizes the browser chrome and leaves more screen real estate for web pages. This new version has the sync features as well as pinch-to-zoom browsing.

We’ve seen pre-release versions of Fennec running on Android in the past, but they were patchy and bare bones. This is a real-deal alpha release. It may not be entirely stable yet, but it’s come a long way since its meager beginnings.

Continue Reading “Firefox Mobile Alpha Lands on Android” »

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File Under: HTML5, Mobile, Web Apps
Aug
17
2010

How Do Native Apps and Web Apps Compare?

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Skull

The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet
The Web is Dead?! A Debate
How the Web Wins
How Do Native Apps and Web Apps Compare?

Two roads diverge on a tablet screen. One is the path to the native app, the other leads to the open web.

Luckily, you can take both. The latest mobile devices ship with a thoroughly modern browser capable of handling emerging web standards. Beneath that is a modern operating system with access to the magic inside the hardware: the camera, GPS, gyroscope and compass. But if you had to pick one — native app or web app — which would you choose? Your decision will make all the difference in how you approach your design, development and distribution.

The Issues Native Apps Web Apps
Internet access Not required Required, except for rare apps with offline capability
Installation/updates Must be deployed or downloaded Hit refresh
User interface Native apps are responsive and functional Browsers can be clunky, but new advancements in JavaScript like jQuery Mobile are catching up fast
Device compatibility Platform-dependent, hardware-dependent Platform-agnostic, content can be reformatted with CSS to suit any device
Animation/Graphics Fast and responsive Web apps are getting closer, but will probably always lag
Streaming media Few problems with audio and video. Flash works, but only if the device supports it Flash works where supported. Browser-based audio and video are getting there, but still beset by compatibility headaches. Give it a year or two
Fonts Tight control over typefaces, layout Almost on par, thanks to advancements in web standards. Give it six months
Is my content searchable? Not on the web By default
Sharable/Tweetable? Only if you build it in Web links are shared freely. Social APIs and widgets allow easy one-click posting
Discussion and collaboration Only if you build it, and it’s more difficult if data is disparate Discussion is easy, all data is stored on a server
Access to hardware sensors Yes, all of them: camera, gyroscope, microphone, compass, accelerometer, GPS Access through the browser is limited, though geolocation is common
Development Specific tools required for some platforms (like Apple’s). You have to build a new app for each target platform Write once, publish once, view it anywhere. Multiple tools and libraries to choose from
Can I sell it? Charge whatever you want. Most app distributors take a slice, up to 30% Advertising is tolerated, subscriptions and paywalls less so. No distribution costs beyond server fees
Distribution Most app stores require approval. And you gotta wait No such hassle
Outside access to your content No, the reader must download your app Yep, just click a link
Advertising Control over design (though limited in iAds) and rate More choices for design, plus access to web analytics. Rates vary widely

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File Under: JavaScript, Mobile
Aug
2
2010

iPhone ‘Pull To Refresh’ in JavaScript

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When it first arrived in iPhone apps, the simple “pull to refresh” action was instantly hailed as a genius bit of user interaction engineering.

It’s an ultra-intuitive way of refreshing the displayed page content by simply pulling the page down with your thumb, then releasing it — sort of like pulling a lever on a slot machine. The official Foursquare and Twitter (nee Tweetie) apps use it, so if you’re into social networking, you’re already familiar. But so far, its use has been limited to native apps.

Now developer Wayne Pan has created the same behavior in JavaScript for use in web apps. It’s just a proof of concept implementation at this time, and he’s found some of the limitations.

Point your mobile browser at waynepan.com/s/pull to test it. It’s a little jerky, but it does work. And his code doesn’t rely on any JavaScript libraries, so with a little tweaking, this behavior can be integrated into any web app and will work on Android and iOS devices. Nice work!

[Hat tip to Dion]

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File Under: Browsers, Mobile
Jul
15
2010

Opera Mini 5.1 Lands on Android Phones

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Lovers of Droid phones and tiny browsers with superfast load times can rejoice. The Opera Mini 5.1 browser for Android phones is out of beta and is now available as a general release.

You can download it in the Android Market, or directly from Opera. If you’ve been testing the previously released beta on your Android phone, you can upgrade to the final release within the app.

The newest version of Opera’s browser adds a pinch-to-zoom feature, but it’s not as elegant as what you’d expect if you’re used to iOS apps. A pinch only zooms you into a specific content well and out to the full page. Still, it’s useful enough to say goodbye to the crude magnifying glass zoom-in-and-out behaviors, which I certainly won’t miss.

The default image quality has also been upgraded to better match the higher-resolution screens of newer phones like the HTC EVO and the Droid X. Opera serves pages to Mini users through a network of web proxy servers, and the data arrives compressed. The method speeds up page loads (especially on slow or flaky data networks), but pages come through looking a little crunchy. This update improves the low-quality image issues.

Opera released its Mini browser for iPhone in April, and it was well-received. It definitely sped up the cellular browsing experience on the iPhone for most websites. But it’s still impossible to make Opera Mini your default browser on the iPhone, and Mobile Safari (with its smooth pinch-to-zoom) has Opera beat for more complex sites and pages that require more navigation than simple scrolling.

Opera Mini for Android can be set as your default browser, and the browser also gets a session restore feature for quick recovery after crashes. There’s also a full-screen mode that does away with the chrome and fills the tiny screen with pure gold web content.

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File Under: Browsers, Mobile
Feb
3
2010

Firefox Takes Its First Baby Steps on Android

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A Mozilla engineer has posted the first screenshot of the Firefox web browser running on Android.

Mozilla’s Vladimir Vukicevic is currently working on porting the mobile version of the Firefox browser to Google’s mobile operating system. The first results, seen in the screenshot above, were posted to Vukicevic’s personal blog Tuesday.

This means that, yes, a full, add-on capable version of Firefox will be making its way to Android phones and tablets in the future. Just a few days ago, Mozilla released a version of Firefox for mobiles running Nokia’s Maemo OS.

Vukicevic’s screenshot shows Firefox running in an Android emulator (to make debugging easier, he says) but it works fine on regular Android devices, too. His team has “a ways to go” before the first public alpha release — various input methods like the keyboard and mouse only “sort of work,” to say nothing of a touch screen — but it’s cool to see some progress being made.

More from Vlad’s post:

You’ll note that this is the full Firefox interface, and not the Fennec/Firefox Mobile UI; we’re testing with the full interface because it’s significantly more complex than the mobile UI and stresses Gecko much more. So, if the full UI works, then Fennec should work fine as well. Given the interest in Android on netbook and tablet devices, an updated version of the full Firefox UI might find a home on some of these.

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